The Darkness Still Has Work to Do
by Raven Aorla
Summary: The Doctor is traveling with Rory, Amy, and a reformed Master. But when the psychic pollen strikes once more, it feeds on the Master to create a far worse foe than the Dream Lord. Not my characters. Sequel to "Games Without Frontiers".
1. Chapter 1

Psychic pollen got into the TARDIS air system again. They were pretty sure that's what happened. Knowing this didn't make the situation much better, though.

For this time, it wasn't the Dream Lord that showed up. Because the Master was onboard, and because even after his reprogramming and reformation he still had layers of insanity and desperate evil buried in his mind, the pollen found it more useful to create the Nightmare Child.

He wore a black suit and tie, the Nightmare Child, and looked like a human nineteen-year-old. His hair was white and his eyes light blue. He had very sharp teeth, though as he was incorporeal they were just for show.

"Would you be interested in knowing the things the Master has done to the Doctor?" he asked Amy and Rory calmly from his boat on an inky sea, as the young couple's island was being swamped with zombie-filled waves they had to fight off with swords.

"Bit _busy,_" Amy replied through gritted teeth, beheading one of the monsters. Behind her, Rory stabbed two through at the same time. The Nightmare Child had separated them from the Gallifreyans and explained that dying in one of his nightmares would put them in permanent comas – he was not nearly as nice as the Dream Lord.

"He's thrown him off a tower, kidnapped him, trapped him multiple times, molested him, tortured him, raped him several dozen times, killed Jack the Freak several hundred times in the course of a year, killed family members of several of his companions, stole his TARDIS, mutilated his TARDIS and used it to conquer the Earth, and refused to regenerate even when the Doctor begged him to."

"If the Doctor forgave him – look out, Amy – that's his business," Rory replied, but there was a wobble to his voice.

Light glinted off a sharp incisor as the Nightmare Child grinned. "Certainly. Nothing to worry about. Not like the Doctor's ever gotten you killed or erased from time before he picked up a raving psychopath as his lover, right? Oh and here he is! If you kill him, I'll let you two and the Doctor go. The Doctor can believe the Master heroically sacrificed himself to save the rest of you, if you like. Enjoy!"

_TBC…_


	2. Chapter 2

Still not my characters. Many thanks to Indigo1100 and KiraSparrow for their nurturing enthusiasm.

…..

Instantly the island, zombies, and sea vanished. Instead, Rory and Amy found themselves seated in comfortable chairs in what looked like a TARDIS room. They heard a growl and a rattle of chains and saw the Master, wearing black satiny pajamas like he'd been dragged out of bed, manacled to a wall with his hands above his head and gagged.

Rory dashed to his side and tried to extricate him. "Don't hurt yourself, Master. We'll stop the Nightmare Child together."

"I didn't leave a key, idiot," the Nightmare Child sneered as he materialized, smooth and deadly as an oil slick. "Though I could count on you trying to help him. He does that, you know: all handsome, dark, and erudite – the Doctor's not the only one with a chronic case of Stockholm syndrome even when _he's _the captor."

"The Master's a very ill mental patient. I don't hold things against him," Rory snapped.

The Master sighed and rolled his eyes at this, but he stopped struggling.

The Nightmare Child made a remote control appear out of nowhere and pressed a button. The wall across from Amy displayed a countdown, the way old movies did. "Go sit down, Rory. I have a bit of a show for you two. Amy might want someone to hold her hand."

"I'll be the judge of that, thanks," Amy replied, though Rory went to her side anyway.

"The things I'll be showing you aren't dreams. They're memories. The Doctor and the Master have worn many different bodies over the centuries…"

"Bodies?" Rory whispered.

"The Doctor explained that their people, instead of dying, can get a new body that looks different," Amy whispered back.

"Oh, so that's why he didn't know what he looked like back when…"

Their foe cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, fascinating isn't it? Did you ever wonder, Amelia Pond, what the Doctor was doing that had him crash-land in your backyard in the first place? He was saving the world, again, from that menace over there. This is what the Master did to the Doctor when he had him in his power." The countdown ended and the Nightmare Child disappeared.

The scene before them opened on a wasteland or junkyard type place. What Amy gathered was the Doctor's previous incarnation, a slightly older-looking (but still gorgeous) tall, spiky-haired waif with Bambi eyes in a blue suit and sweeping brown coat, was searching anxiously through rubble and dust.

When he found the Master, the Master smirked and shot bolts of electricity at his chest. Amy found herself squeaking and grabbing Rory's hand. The Doctor kept walking forward until it finally made him collapse. First the Master caught him, but with a disgusted look eventually dropped him to the filthy ground. They talked about the Master burning up his life-force, along with other things that were beyond Amy's understanding.

One thing the Master said, though, sufficiently intrigued her to tuck away in her mind like a pebble in her pocket. She wanted to point it out to Rory as a clue for how to get out of this mess, but the "film" fast-forwarded to a scene so horrifying that she had no time.

Somehow, the Master managed to turn the entire population of Earth into clones of himself. This accomplished, the primary Master, who was wearing a black hoodie and red shirt, ordered the Doctor carried off to a private room.

"_Oh yes, do struggle, Doctor, it's delicious when you do, particularly when there's no possible way it'll do you any good." _

"I don't want to look," Rory said when six Master clones, along with the original, had the Doctor pinned to the floor and were efficiently stripping him, occasionally pausing to lick, bite, or snog him when the adrenalin became overwhelming. The Doctor was being handled like an unlucky rag doll and his pale, lightly freckled skin was reddening with the roughness and hunger.

Amy nodded and shut her eyes. Then she shuddered. "Rory, I can _still see._"

"Dear God, so can I."

Putting hands over their ears didn't muffle the Doctor's pleading or his cries of pain, either.

"Did you know that the Doctor you're familiar with is number Eleven?" the Nightmare Child asked, appearing on Amy's other side and eating popcorn out of a paper bag. "I won't even be able to show you every incident in every body, but still, we're going to be here for a while if that's what it takes to convince you."


	3. Chapter 3

Before their eyes, a dark-haired Master wheeled an elderly figure in a brown pinstriped suit into a bedroom, locking the door behind him. The old man reminded Rory of patients who'd found out they had brain tumors or other incurable illnesses: all slumped and empty. This past Master whirred a device that looked a bit like the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver, but a different model, and screams filled the room, as if piped in.

"Aren't you going to ask me what that is?" The Master asked with a smile.

"I can tell that it's Jack, Master," the old man said quietly, staring at his hands.

Rory was glad he and Amy couldn't actually see Jack's torment. One or both of them might have been sick.

"He's being eaten alive by a few score army ants at the moment. If I have him left like that it's going to take hours. What would you be willing to do for me to have the ants sprayed with insecticide, the Freak to be painlessly chloroformed, and me to not kill him in any way for the next three days?"

The man mumbled something. The Master bent towards him. "I can't he-ear you…"

"_Anything,_ Master."

Rory realized who the old man was just before the Master raised his device and pointed it at him. The knowledge was like a dry bit of toast caught in his throat.

Instantly the Doctor entered a seizure of metamorphosis, flailing, kicking, crying incoherently, until the young, slender incarnation from the previous sequences collapsed onto the carpeted floor. His hair and face were streaked with sweat and what might have been tears.

"Very good, Doctor," the Master said gently, pocketing his screwdriver and taking his captive by the necktie. He steered him towards the bed. "Now take those clothes off and show me you're mine."

"Yes, Master." The tie was clearly choking him a little. He was too weak to move fast enough for comfort.

"Smile for the camera, too. This will be your little friend's entertainment during his vacation." He gave the Doctor one long, lascivious lick across the neck, chuckling at the Doctor's shudder.


	4. Chapter 4

Amy guiltily wondered if all the different versions of the Doctor were devastatingly sexy and just as devastatingly hands-off when it came to human females – not that she ever wanted to hurt or betray Rory after that one moment of wildness before the wedding, but they had enjoyed their threesome with Captain Jack just fine.

She quashed the thoughts, though, when another version of the Doctor got into another kind of trouble. This one had soft blue eyes and soft brown curls and dressed in an ensemble of a green velvet Victorian jacket with tails, a waistcoat, and a cravat, as luscious as it was out of place almost anywhen. A sunglasses-wearing Master in robes with an ornate collar possessed his companion, and then had him restrained with some device that kept his eyes open.

The Doctor's beseech to woman doing the Master's bidding: _"The Master will steal the rest of my regenerations! He will live and I will die!" _had barely faded when the scene changed again.

This Doctor had similar eyes but ruffled blond hair that made her think of a slightly ill-groomed angel, and wore in an incongruous but cute beige cricket outfit, complete with stripy pants and a v-necked cream jumper, with a stick of celery pinned to the lapel of the coat, trimmed in orange-red. He was sitting and hugging his knees in a dank, medieval dungeon cell, with a lit torch keeping him company.

A black-haired and bearded man in all black velvet and leather gloves came to visit him. He had a key in one hand and a cup in the other. "Enjoying yourself, my dear Doctor?"

The Doctor sighed. "I should have known you were behind this, Master."

"Would you like the key?"

"Enough games. What do you want?"

"I thought you could use some refreshment." He poked the cup through the bars.

"I know better than to take a drink from you."

"You wound me. I promise I'll give you the key afterwards." Suddenly the Master winced and clutched at his head with the hand holding the key.

The Doctor rose to his feet and looked strangely concerned, almost paternal. "Are they troubling you again?"

The Master gritted his teeth. "It's nothing."

"They're getting worse every time we meet. I wish you'd…"

"Just take the drink. I promise it won't kill you or prevent you escaping."

The Doctor took the cup, stared at it, and then at the Master, who was rhythmically tapping his foot, and drank. "Oh my…" the Doctor said weakly, sinking to the slimy tiles.

The Master unlocked the door and smiled. "You'll simply be paralyzed of all voluntary motion for the next three hours. I wasn't actually behind this one. I was simply in the neighborhood. But I don't do favors for nothing." And he knelt down to start unbuttoning the helpless Doctor's shirt.

….

The Nightmare Child showed Amy and Rory (and the bound Master) several other incidents too, involving a Doctor all teeth and hair with what looked like a fourteen-foot long scarf being thrown off a tower, a silver-haired Doctor battling a silver-goateed Master over and over, and a montage of various Masters killing, hypnotizing, and stealing the bodies of innocents.

Finally Amy jumped to her feet. "Enough! Enough! The point you wanted to make is either made or it's never gonna be, so stop torturing us!"

"Yeah, what she said," Rory added, kneading his temples and staring at the floor even though he could still see when he did.

The Nightmare Child froze the screen on a tableau of the Master holding what he had informed them was the Third Doctor at gunpoint. He made a dagger appear in Amy's hand. She shoved it at him, disgusted, though of course it could not make contact with his incorporeality. "I'm not a killer."

"He is, though. He has killed billions and repeatedly harmed the only person who could be even remotely said to love him. He will escape you and kill again if you don't stop him. Then you'll just be a killer by proxy."

And a traitorous, tiny part of Amy said, "_He has a point." _


	5. Chapter 5

But the thought, the thought was like a pebble in her pocket, its minor and rounded weight making itself known. In the graveyard of their hopes, with a version of the Doctor crumpled to the ground, the Master had said, _"I had estates…"_

Amy dropped the dagger to the ground and turned to the bound Master. "You. The Nightmare Child is really you, yeah? But he's only showing us the bad. Show us why the Doctor loves you. Dream it."

"I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish…" Rory said, still seated.

"Hush, dear. I know you can, Master."

The screen flickered, and a faded image of red grass and off-tinted sky filled it. Amy smiled and smoothed hair out of the Master's eyes, unable to remove even the gag that was locked on, but wanting to give him a little comfort all the same.

Two children ran through vast fields, calling up at the sky. They played games until the sun set, then looked up at the stars together, lying with their hands held.

"There has to be more. Show me more."

Pillow fights in a school dormitory. Helping each other study for tests. Furtive kisses in corridors. Dancing together in an empty ballroom to what was literally unearthly music.

The embarrassed request: "Koschei, I was wondering if you…you…"

"Yes?"

"You could tie me up?"

The oft-repeated complaint: "It hurts, Theta. Those _drums._ The doctors say they have no idea what's causing it. Since I was eight. Those drums."

The solemn vow: "When I get a title, I want to be called 'The Doctor', because I want to be the one that fixes you."

A tear began to slide down the Master's face as they skipped ahead several centuries. Amy and Rory learned that the Master's insanity was caused by a signal sent back in time, so the decadent and evil Time Lords could escape from their bubble and destroy all of Creation in their bid to survive, that this love had been exploited for their ends.

"You are diseased," Rassilon told the version of the Master they knew, with a sneer. "Albeit a disease of our own making."

And then when the Doctor was about to perish for good, trapped away from the universe he had sworn to protect, the Master yelled at him to get out of the way.

"You did this to me!" he shouted to Rassilon, shooting the energy bolts at him, snarling with rage and half-forgotten but still-alive devotion to the one person who believed in him. "You made me! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!"

As Rassilon screamed and faded into oblivion, the Nightmare Child emitted a bloodcurdling shriek and crumbled into dust, the whole macabre "theater" Amy and Rory had been subjected to wearing away as well. All dissolved in white light.

…

When reality asserted itself, Amy and Rory were lying in a pile on a very big bed they hadn't seen before on the TARDIS. The Doctor and the Master were tangled together on the opposite side. The Master caught the Doctor's eye and blushed deeply, then bolted for another room.

"That's it," the Doctor said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "I'm combing through the ventilation system for any remaining specks of psychic pollen or any other kind of debris. Good job, Amy."

"Where were you during all that, Doctor?" Amy asked.

The Doctor groaned. "I was reenacting all my parts. Not fun. If you'd killed the Master, which only the Nightmare Child could have thought you'd consider, I would have been trapped in a memory loop unless someone more telepathically powerful had come to rescue me. You two would have been trapped in a pilotless TARDIS."

The humans both cringed at the implications. "I kind of figured that you can't have one of you without the other," Amy said.

Rory smiled and kissed her. "I'm glad you understand too. Let's get some lunch."

…..

A few hours later, Amy ran into the Master on the way to take a shower. "Master," Amy said quietly.

"Hm?" The Master was surprised she actually called him that.

"Did you really want to die all that much?"

"Oh, what would a human be expected to know?" he said dismissively. But he called her "Amy" after that, and she spoke Last of the Time Lords well enough to know that he meant, "Not anymore."


End file.
